Subtext
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Before Sam came back, there was no one who heard what Dean wasn't saying.


_This story first appeared in _Road Trip With My Brother 1_ (2006), from Agent With Style_**  
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**Subtext**  
K Hanna Korossy

"Little help here, Sam!"

Sam was already moving, had been as soon as the Lindorm had turned Dean's way and hissed. He wasn't particularly fond of snakes, but he was of his brother, and Fangs was in between them now. It was never a smart place to be. Sam took aim and swung the curved axe right at the back of the creature's neck.

And almost missed as Dean's cell phone suddenly rang.

He heard Dean curse, probably less for the distraction as for the spray of snake blood that suddenly drenched him. Even as the serpent flailed, Sam could see Dean's jaw set as he dove for the gun Fangs had ripped out of his hand, and dropped into a Weaver stance, moving with the snake until he could get a shot off. Sam would have bet good money it hit the Lindorm square in the face, if not the eye. A few seconds later, it lay dead between them. He and Dean stood panting and, at least Sam, weak-kneed.

He glowered at his brother. "I thought you turn your phone off when we're hunting."

"It's not like we expected to find it here!" Dean shot back defensively, wiping green blood off his face with disgusted strokes. "If I would have known we'd be ambushed, I'd have turned the phone off."

"I told you, that waitress isn't gonna call."

"That's not why—" Dean growled wordlessly in frustration. "Forget it." He was still dripping, and he shook his hands, trying to get some of the goo off.

Sam suddenly grinned at his brother. "You look like you've been slimed."

Dean grimaced, arms still held out from his sides. "Feels like it, too. Man, I don't know how the Ghostbusters put up with this."

"Occupational hazard. You wanna give me a hand?"

Dean leaned over to help him shove the Lindorm carcass off the bank, into the river. Hopefully by the time anyone found it, it would just be another pile of half-buried bones. Sam straightened, resisting the urge to wipe his hands on his sweatshirt, then raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"Are you getting in the car like that?"

Dean groaned.

00000

Sam didn't have the heart to call dibs on the shower, satisfying himself with packing while he listened to Dean use up all the hot water. The things he put up with for his brother... And Sam's smile faded at the reminder of why he was on the road with Dean. He sighed and kept packing.

Dean walked out a few minutes later, a towel around his hips, and glanced over at Sam. "So, we gonna try that little Chinese place up the street?"

"I thought you said you didn't want Chinese?"

A shrug. "Changed my mind."

Which was never as simple as that where Dean was concerned. Sam wondered if his sudden melancholy had showed. But it was a kind offer, and he wasn't above taking advantage. "Okay." He nodded at Dean's phone on the table. "You wanna check your messages first, see what was so important it almost got us eaten?"

"We wouldn't have been eaten, we'd have—" Dean caught his expression, not the least bit subtle this time. "Never mind."

Sam shook his head and gathered a change of clothing. He turned back just as Dean was slipping his phone into his pocket, his back to Sam.

"Look, Sam, I'm really not hungry. Why don't you go get some food and I'll see you later?"

Sam's attention sharpened. He couldn't see his brother's face, either by design or coincidence, but something had changed in Dean's voice, something not good. No, not changed; shut down. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything's fine, I just feel like going out." Dean finally glanced his way, face carefully neutral, eyes revealing nothing. Dean's eyes always showed something.

Sam took a step toward him. "But—"

A plastic smile joined the act. "Don't wait up."

And Dean was gone.

Sam sank down in the chair, wondering what the heck had just happened there. Dean's tone and expression hadn't wavered, but Sam had heard it anyway, the resonance of bad news, of shock and pain that Dean was working hard to hide. It might have worked, too, if Sam hadn't had almost twenty years of practice of listening to him.

Dad? Something else? Sam shivered, because there were a lot of really horrible possibilities in their line of work. And Dean wasn't talking to him. Didn't he know by now how much that didn't work?

Distractedly, Sam gathered his stuff and headed for the shower, but he didn't feel like dinner anymore, either.

00000

The door opened quietly, letting in a rectangle of light from the illuminated parking lot, outlining the shape of his brother as he stood for a long moment in the doorway, dark against the brightness. Sam lay still, not feigning sleep but not wanting to spook Dean again. His brother did not freak easily, but there was no question in Sam's mind he was running scared that night.

He silently willed Dean to step inside, and slowly, slowly, he did, as if sensing a trap but helpless to avoid it. The door shut behind him with every effort to be soundless, plunging the room back into darkness.

Sam leaned over and turned the bedside light on. And for a moment as his brother froze, before he could smooth his features back into the bland look of that afternoon, Dean's face was raw.

It sent a pang through Sam, but he was good at acting, too. Carefully neutral, he asked, "Had a good time?"

"Yup." Dean pulled his jacket off, tossed it on the nearby chair, all studied casualness.

Sam pushed up on one elbow, tired already of the game. "What's going on, Dean?"

"Nothing, just had a few beers. I didn't mean to break curfew, Dad—go back to sleep."

Except, Sam hadn't been sleeping in the first place, not with the worry. And despite those "few beers" Sam could smell from his bed, Dean was stone cold sober. Sam sat up and swung his legs out of bed, still squinting at the light. "No, seriously, man, something's wrong."

Exasperation passed over Dean's face. "Nothing's wrong—what is with you today? I can't go out and have some fun without there being some deep, dark secret?" He turned his back on Sam and started shrugging out of his clothes.

At least he wasn't leaving again, but that was about the only good thing Sam could find in this scene. Dean sounded annoyed, confused, and dismissive, hitting all the right notes in reaction to Sam's concern. But the hurt from earlier was there underneath the careful act, something that had been caught unguarded in that first second Sam had turned on the light. Something wrong, and while Dean seemed to be handling it just fine, pretending it didn't even exist, Sam knew better. "Is it Dad?"

Dean wheeled on him. "Would you drop this? Dad is fine. At least, I guess Dad is fine—it's not like we ever hear from him, right?"

"So that wasn't Dad calling before?" Sam said slowly.

"No. I would've told you." And he'd just made a mistake, because Dean _would_ have told him and Sam knew it. All he'd succeeded in now was shutting Dean up a little tighter.

"Dean, what is it?" Sam persisted, not even knowing why because for all Dean's prodding to talk about his dreams, Winchester men didn't _talk._They glanced and teased and occasionally there were manly hugs, but God forbid they talk. And Sam didn't really want to this time, truth be told, but the glances and pointed lack of teasing were exactly what had convinced him how much they needed to.

Halfway through undressing, Dean suddenly reversed himself and started pulling clothes back on, and Sam knew he was running out of time. "You know what? Forget it. I'm going out again. If I have to get a separate room to get some sleep, I will."

"I have a right to know," Sam said forcefully. "You're the one watching my back, too."

It was his brother's usual argument, and Sam's second mistake of the night as he saw Dean stiffen. He hadn't just pushed now, he'd shoved, painfully.

Dean half-turned to him, face in shadow. "I have _never_ stopped watching your back, Sam." And he grabbed his jacket and turned to do just that, walking out God knew where.

Last chance. Suddenly, all the arguing in the world seemed useless. Sam just shook his head and said softly, "Dean, please don't go."

Dean stopped at the door, his back to the room, fighting a battle Sam couldn't join him in.

He finally turned, and something in his face had changed. Cracked. "How do you know?" The jacket in Dean's hand rose and fell in a helpless motion. "It's been two years, Sam, and Dad…" He laughed humorlessly. "Dad would've just said to make sure I didn't drink so much I let my guard down."

Yeah, John Winchester loved them dearly, but Sam knew as well as his brother that their dad wouldn't have seen through Dean's pain or heard the wrongness in his voice, nor prodded to find its source.

"We grew up the same way, Dean. That doesn't change," he said gently. But he wasn't letting himself get distracted. "Who called?"

Dean dropped his jacket on the bed and sat heavily across from Sam, looking to one side of him. "Nobody you know. Nobody I know, for that matter. Just a friend of a girl we—I—helped out a while back."

Sam was wincing inside already.

Dean glanced at him, almost nonchalant except for the expression in his eyes. "The girl—Holly—she's dead."

Sam frowned. "But you said you—"

A sharp shake of the head. "It wasn't the curse I got her out of. Car accident—how's that for irony? We break this major generational curse, she gets a whole new lease on life, and she buys it on the highway less than a year later. She was younger than me, Sam." His hand made some useless motion.

"We could go back for the funeral..."

"Last week," Dean said flatly. "The friend just found my number."

Sam made a face, tilted his head. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, you said it yourself—can't save everybody, right?" And, jeez, did Dean fool anyone with that mask? Because Sam could still hear the grieving just fine.

Sam got up and moved to the other bed, snapping the light off as he went, and sat down beside his brother. "At least you gave her another few months. That's something."

"She was a good person, Sam. She deserved better." Dean's voice had grown a little huskier.

Sam raised a hand, hesitated, and put it on Dean's shoulder. There wasn't anything more to say and they both knew it because life sometimes didn't make sense. But it also didn't have to be faced alone. They'd both tried to forget that the last few years, but he didn't think Dean had had any more success than he had.

And Sam wondered for the first time if it wasn't for disinterest or preoccupation that Dean hadn't called more often during those years. Sam would have heard the truth then, too, and they both knew it. He'd had Jess, and Becca, and the rest of his friends, but how many times had there been no one to listen to what Dean wasn't saying?

They sat in the silence and the dark, Dean's muscles working under Sam's hand, but not shrugging him off. Finally, he pulled in a deep breath, and his shoulders straightened. "Dude, I don't know about you but I'm beat."

Sam could still hear the sorrow, but also the acceptance. He nodded into the darkness, relieved and sad, and squeezed lightly before he let go. "Yeah, I could sleep."

"No 5:30 wake-up calls." Dean was looking at him, Sam could tell even in the dark.

He smiled. "No wake-up calls," he echoed. His nightmares might belie that, but Dean knew as much. He listened a little more carefully than Sam was used to, too.

Dean rose to get ready for bed, clapping Sam on the leg as he did. Now _that_ was Winchester communication, and Sam smiled to himself as he went back to his own bed. Straight talk in the dark was one thing, but a heartfelt thanks, and he would have checked under the bed for pods. How screwed up were they?

Dean slipped into bed, murmuring a, "G'night," in washed-out tones.

Sam returned it, staring at the ceiling a long minute before he turned onto his side facing Dean and closed his eyes.

Completely screwed up, maybe, but, really, it wasn't all that bad.

**The End**


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